Cadaver transplantation is set to receive a big boost in Andhra Pradesh with scheduled launch of the programme (Jeevandan) at NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) later this month.
The Government has cleared the decks for establishment of the Appropriate Authority for Cadaver Transplantation (AACT) under the A.P Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1995 at NTRUHS and appointed its Vice-Chancellor T. Ravi Raju as the AACT Chairman.
At a meeting on NTRUHS premises on Tuesday, Dr. Ravi Raju discussed with doctors of transplant centres and coordinators ways to popularize cadaver transplantation, also called Deceased Donor Organ Transplantation, which is confined to kidneys in the State due to infrastructure constraints and lack of experts to some extent.
By replacing the words ‘NIMS (Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences), Hyderabad’ in Rule 6.1 of G.O Ms. No. 184 dated August 16, 2010 with NTRUHS, Vijayawada, the Health, Medical and Family Welfare Department has through G.O Ms. No. 1 issued on January 6, 2015 facilitated the launch of the State’s own cadaver transplantation programme in Vijayawada.
An initial corpus fund of Rs.2 crore has been sanctioned for taking necessary steps for implementing the programme with NTRUHS housing the AACT office.
Dr. Ravi Raju told The Hindu that the AACT would help registered hospitals in creating infrastructure required for harvesting, storing, transporting and transplanting the organs. A handful of hospitals in A.P were doing transplantation of kidneys only, whereas the demand for heart, liver and lungs was quite high. Four sub-committees would assist the AACT in allocating organs.
The NTRUHS and Andhra Medical College (AMC), Visakhapatnam have been designated as ‘nodal places’ for imparting training to transplantation coordinators and AMC, Guntur Medical College and Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati as nodal organizations for undertaking promotional activities.
Recognizing organ transplantation centres and non-transplantation organ harvesting centres and networking them is major task on hand, for which modalities are being worked out.
There is also the sensitive job of getting grief counsellors to convince people about the need for organ donation when their near and dear ones are for all practical purposes brain-dead but may not be declared so.
